And lawmakers were amused by another update to Idaho law: eliminating a section on dueling. House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee chair Richard Wills offered Rep. Don Cheatham the honor of presenting the bill to the full House.

“Anybody else wanted to join in? Because this is a dueling situation!” Wills said to laughter.

The gentleman from Post Falls won the honor and didn’t even have to fight for it.

The law in question said that Idaho has jurisdiction over people who die in the state from injuries in out-of-state duels involving Idahoans. The old territorial law was meant to avoid situations like the one where Aaron Burr was charged in two states for the murder of Alexander Hamilton.

“It is normal to remove prisoners who are ill, place them in hospitals, place them in other settings to protect both themselves and other prisoners,” the Idaho Sheriffs Association’s Michael Kane said. “I don’t think anybody’s asked a district judge to do this probably in 100 years. It’s simply obsolete.”

The House judiciary panel also voted to downgrade curfew violations from a misdemeanor to an infraction. It’s part of an effort to better match punishments with crimes and lighten the burden on the public defense system.

But be prepared to encounter a "closed trail" sign. Several Northwest hiking routes are off-limits to humans this time of year. That's because the region’s migrant mule deer still need a few months to themselves.

“Giving them a little bit of space and a little consideration can be helpful to ensure that we have healthy deer populations,” said David Volsen, a district wildlife biologist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Some state lawmakers want to crack down on sex trafficking by cracking down on demand. Rep. Dick Muri, R-Steilacoom, has a bill in the state House that would allow law enforcement to confiscate the cars and money of people who buy sex, just like they do in drug busts.

“Not only will it make the buyers of sex think twice about doing it in the state of Washington, but the revenues that we then get will be used to help fund rehabilitation programs and the policing,” Muri said.

Mary (a pseudonym) is a sex worker in Seattle and member of the Seattle Sex Workers Outreach Project. Mary told KUOW’s Marcie Sillman that while new penalties would not be aimed at sex workers, they would still be bad for sex workers.

Construction of the new state Route 520 bridge is about halfway along now. But just as our tunnel mega-project has a major complication, SR 520 has its own mega-snag: we lack the minimum $1.6 billion to complete it.

The state’s highway department is also not clear on the final design of the "Rest of the West," as this embattled section of the 520 bridge is called.